Third Temple
Muslim apocalyptic believers fear that efforts to destroy Al-Aqsa mosque to make way for the Third Temple will prevent fulfillment of the prophecy about Islam's Meccan shrine migrating to Jerusalem at the end of time. Among Muslims, expectation of the final Hour helps feed exaggerated fears about Israel's actions in Jerusalem. Belief in the approaching End has influenced crucial events in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Time and again, it has been the rationale behind apparently irrational bloodshed, and undermined efforts at peacemaking. In the worst case, desire for history's finale has the potential to spark all-out war in the Middle East.
To messianic Jews, continued Muslim control of the Temple Mount constitutes an insufferable indignity. "Until the holy of holies is under our sovereignty, it means we're still living in the Diaspora," one of Israel's pre-eminent religious figures and the army rabbi who blew the shofar, or ram's horn, when Israeli troops captured the Temple Mount in 1967, Rabbi Shlomo Goren said in 1994. "It means we are not yet living in a Jewish state."
Jews believe the Temple Mount is where Abraham bound his son Isaac for sacrifice, where Solomon erected the so-called First Temple for prayer and animal offerings, and where it was later rebuilt by Herod the Great. After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD, Jews have longed to rebuild a third one. Many messianic Jews believe a third temple is a prerequisite for the coming of the Messiah.
On Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, Jews worldwide observe a day of mourning for the destruction of the two Temples. Throughout the world, they fast, pray, and beseech for the rebuilding of the Third Temple. Tisha B'Av is a day of fasting and mourning in Judaism. It is observed on the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av. The holiday commemorates several disasters that happened to the Jewish people throughout history, including: the destruction of Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire; and the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman Empire. The central element of synagogue services on the eve of Tisha B'Av is the mournful reading of Eichah (Lamentations). Tisha B'Av is the culmination of a three week period of increasing mourning, beginning with the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, which commemorates the first breach in the walls of Jerusalem, before the First Temple was destroyed. The restrictions on Tisha B'Av are similar to those on Yom Kippur: to refrain from eating and drinking (even water); washing, bathing, shaving or wearing cosmetics, etc.. Many of the traditional mourning practices are observed: people refrain from smiles, laughter and idle conversation, and sit on low stools.
The Reform movement's prayer book doesn't even mention the ancient temple rituals, although nearly one-quarter of the Torah's 613 laws deal with the temple's animal sacrifices. The Conservative prayer book celebrates the temple cult as part of ancient Judaism, but expresses no desire to reinstate it. Orthodox Jews continue to pray regularly for the rebuilding of the temple and for animal sacrifices to be offered there again. But even many of these observant Jews find the prospect animal offerings in the 21st century a bit far-fetched. Some say Jewish tradition forbids the construction of such a Temple before the coming of the Messiah.
Among the most important points in debate between Christians and Jews are these - Christians maintain that the Messiah has come, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah; the Jews deny both these propositions. Daniel foretold that Messiah should come at the end of a certain limited term; and that after he had come, the temple sacrifices should be abolished, and the Jewish polity dissolved by a hostile invasion. The Jews acknowledge that the last particulars have been accomplished, and yet deny that the former particular has been accomplished.
Some have acknowledged that the coming of the Messiah is not conditional. Abravenel and Hillel both think, that, though the coming of the Messiah might be hastened by the righteousness of the Jews, yet it could not be delayed by their iniquity "if they deserve not, it shall still be in its time.* Menasseh Ben-Israel relates "that it is built upon the absolute promise of the blessed God:" and Bechai asserts, that "redemption indeed depends upon repentance; but if repentance do not intervene, the fixed time for it shall not be removed." In fact, they who assert that the coming of Messiah is delayed on account of iniquity, do virtually acknowledge that he ought to have come already.
The "Third Temple" is a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. It would be the successor to Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Secular accounts say the Second Temple was completed around 516 BCE, but some Jewish sources say it was completed much later in 350 BCE. Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple in 20-18 BCE. The Temple Mount, located in the Old City of Jerusalem, is a holy site in Judaism and Islam. It is also central to the Christian Gospels. Jewish tradition says that the Temple Mount was the location of several important events in the Bible.
The most volatile issues between Muslim and Jew remain far from resolved. Chief among them is the abiding dispute over the spot here known to Jews as the Temple Mount. The ancient stone plaza, where King Solomon's temple once stood, holds the Aqsa mosque and the gold-plated Dome of the Rock, Islam's third-holiest shrine, which covers the spot from where Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven.
Jews believe the Temple Mount is where Abraham bound his son Isaac for sacrifice, where Solomon erected the so-called First Temple for prayer and animal offerings, and where it was later rebuilt by Herod the Great. After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD, Jews longed to rebuild a third one. Since the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, it's as if Judaism had its heart extracted and was living on borrowed time.
In June 1967, at the conclusion of the Six Day War, the Israelis found themselves, for the first time in 2,000 years, in control of the Old City of Jerusalem. When fundamentalist Christians read the Bible in the late 20th century, something had fundamentally changed. They open texts for the first time in 2,000 years -- texts like Revelation, texts like the Book of Daniel, the prophets -- and they can begin to see the possibilities of a literal fulfillment, not a symbolic fulfillment as in the past.
Now fundamentalist Jews and fundamentalist Christians have something in common. If Mesiah is to come, if Jesus is going to come back, if these things are really going to happen, there has to be a temple. One of the prerequisites for the Third Temple is Israeli sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, since 1967.
The other is a rite in the Book of Numbers, where a red heifer is sacrificed and burnt into ashes. According to Numbers 19, the ashes of the Red Heifer mixed with water are a necessary element for purifying Jews to enable them to do service in the Temple.
Some fundamentalist Jews look to the Jeremiah 33:14–18 presentation of the New Covenant for Israel, which speaks about the Messianic Age when all Israel will be saved and restored to the Land of Israel. At that time, a righteous descendant of David, the Messiah, will sit on the throne in Jerusalem, and the Temple will again stand complete with its Levitical priesthood.
Haggai says, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former." The demonstrative pronoun hazzeh, or this, compels understanding the temple which he had desired the old people to observe as being so much inferior to that of Solomon; therefore the temple in which Messiah was to appear, must necessarily be the second temple, and cannot be that future temple predicted by Ezekiel.
For some fundamentalist Christians, the Bible never makes a connection between the timing of the resurrection (rapture) and the Jerusalem Temple being built except that the resurrection must occur before the start of tribulation because scripture states that by the mid-point of tribulation the temple will be built and defiled by the Antichrist. Additionally, tribulation begins with a deceitful peace treaty between the Antichrist and the Jewish people which could possibly initiate the build of the third temple.
Many of those interpretations are derived from the book "Dispensational Truths" by Baptist Pastor and Biblical scholar Charles Larkin, which was published in 1918. Recently, Russian ultra-nationalist Aleksandr Dugin took his faith-based ideology one step further by suggesting that today’s Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, is the Biblical incarnation of the Third Rome or the restoration of the Third Temple in Jerusalem.
The relics of the first temple may still be traced, it is said there is nothing at all of the second temple built by the Jews on their return from captivity; while the third temple built by Herod, a little still remains. In the 15th century, William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness and Baron of Roslin, built a Catholic chapel in the Midlothian region of Scotland. Famous for its esoteric symbolism, this flamboyant Gothic church was of great importance to the Knights Templar, who formed a Third Temple of Solomon.
"It would be hard for me, as a mainstream Orthodox rabbi, to assume that if the temple was rebuilt, we'd pick up where we were 2,000 years ago," says Rabbi Michah Halpern, a historian in Jerusalem. Rather, he says, it is the act of "yearning" for the third temple and the Messiah that counts. "We are not involved in the actual building processes themselves," he says.
This modern reticence made it easy for then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, shortly after Israel's 1967 victory, to return control of the Temple Mount to its Jordanian-run Islamic board, called the waqf. At the time, many rabbis were warning Jews to stay off the Temple Mount anyway, lest they commit the "arrogance of arrogance" of treading on the "holy of holies," where in ancient times only the high priest was allowed to go. (Nobody knows precisely where the hollowed ground lies.) The waqf took back the keys; few Jews complained.
Many Jewish leaders, including the government-appointed Rabbi of the Western Wall, continued to say Jewish law prohibited Jews from entering the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, a view the ultra-Orthodox community supported. Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau stated in June, however, that he would like to see a Third Temple built on the site without demolishing Muslim structures. Increasing numbers of the self-identified “national religious” Zionist community stated they found meaning in setting foot on the site.
The Temple Institute and Temple Mount Faithful, continued to call on the government to implement a time-sharing plan at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif to set aside certain hours for Jewish worship, similar to the practice at the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Muslim authorities continued to oppose this idea.
But over the years, Temple Mount experts, including Rabbi Goren, published diagrams of the ancient site showing the many areas where Jews could safely roam. The messianists, whose numbers have steadily grown since 1967, had their calling: Take back the Temple Mount.
Small groups sprang up to lead Jewish worshipers on to the mount in defiance of the waqf. Israeli police had to seal off ancient tunnels discovered under the site to foil Jewish efforts to raze the Muslim shrines. Nearby, a yeshiva, a religious school, was founded to train future priests for duties in a rebuilt temple. And the Temple Institute, funded in part by the Israeli government, reproduced all the necessary biblical trappings--from sacrificial urns and altars to priestly vestments and breastplates--to perform the temple rituals again. Suddenly, Jews, who had waited millenniums to restore the temple, were beginning the process themselves.
"When you say the Messiah will rebuild the temple later on," says the institute's Rabbi Chaim Richman, "you're basically shirking the responsibility yourself."
Since 1987, when the Temple Movement began preparations for the rebuilding of the Third Temple, efforts to see this become a reality in the 21st century have been slowly progressing. Jewish leaders in the Temple Movement believe the Jewish people are not living on the spiritual level God intended because of the absence of the Shekinah (Divine Presence) from the world. The Temple provided a link between the land and the Divine.
Militant Jews embarked on a campaign to get Muslims off the Temple Mount once and for all. "We are living at a time when God is correcting the mistakes of history," says Gershon Salomon, a history professor and leader of Temple Mount Faithful, a Jewish group dedicated to wresting control of the sacred site. "Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock must be removed back to Mecca, the place from where they came. We will rebuild them stone by stone. We have the means to do it."
Religiously based terrorism is interested in dispelling from the earth all elements that corrupt its vision of the world. In the case of the Gush Emunim, this meant using violence to prepare the way for the messianic age. Sacred Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount, called The Abomination by the Gush terrorists, were viewed as desecrations of the site of the third temple. This justified their planned destruction of the Dome of the Rock. This plan was halted only when the planners failed to receive Rabbinic approval for it. Such groups are not interested in negotiation or compromise with those not of their faith.
Groups such as the Temple Mount Faithful and the Temple Institute regularly called for increased Jewish access and prayer at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, as well as the construction of a Third Jewish Temple on the site. The Temple Institute in August 2014 began a crowdfunding campaign to finance architectural plans for the Third Temple, and a promotional video on its website depicted the Third Temple built atop the al-Aqsa Mosque site. In the mid-1980s, a group of settlers was arrested and convicted of terrorist acts against Palestinians and of plotting to destroy the Dome of the Rock.
The “Jerusalem syndrome” is a temporary psychiatric condition - characterised by patients believing that they have become biblical figures such as Jesus, John the Baptist, or Moses - has been known to Israeli psychiatrists for decades. It affects mainly Christian pilgrims but is occasionally diagnosed in Jews who tour holy sites. Religious Jews with the syndrome may believe that the building of the third temple is imminent, that the ancient animal sacrifices will be restored, and that their own Messiah will soon arrive. Those affected begin to act strangely, sometimes proclaiming that they are ancient religious figures sent on a holy mission. Apocalyptic Christians expected the next millennium to herald the second coming of Jesus on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
In the case of the Gush Emunim, this meant using violence to prepare the way for the messianic age. Sacred Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount, called The Abomination by the Gush terrorists, are viewed as desecrations of the site of the third temple. This justified their planned destruction of the Dome of the Rock.
The temple cause spread to non-Jews as well. Prominent leaders of America's Christian right insistently predicted the Third Temple will be built. Messianic Christians believe the building of the Third Temple marks the "end of days," when Jesus will return to officiate the Final Judgment. Construction of the Third Temple would require the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
In Canton, Miss., a Christian preacher and cattle breeder named Clyde Lott, after reading Genesis one night, contacted his state's trade office to find out if Israel had the red cows it would need to perform proper, biblical purification rites in a third temple. It didn't. Over the past five years, Mr. Lott, working with the Temple Institute and some American Christian backers, has developed a breed of red cow that he hopes will spawn "the livestock restoration" of Israel, he says.
Many Christians believe another manmade temple will be built prior to Jesus' return. They will cite the prophecy that sacrifice and offering will be stopped in the midst of the 70th Week (Daniel 9:27) as one major piece of evidence for this. However, sacrifices and offerings were made on an altar even before the foundation of the Second Temple had been laid (Ezra 3:1-6). Therefore, there does not have to be another manmade temple standing, in which sacrifices and offerings will take place and then are stopped, for Daniel's prophecy to be fulfilled.
The risks increased after the year 2000, as prophesised dates for the End pass and believers looked for a way to ensure that the End came within the lifetime of those who saw the creation of the state of Israel.
The researcher specializing in Jerusalem affairs, Ziad Ibhais, says that the ultimate goal of the Temple groups and the Israeli right is “religious replacement” by removing the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in its entire area from existence, and establishing the “alleged Temple” in its place and on its entire area. On their way to achieving this goal, the Temple groups and the Israeli government - according to researcher Ibhais - have adopted interim goals that they consider closer to being achieved, and they are sequentially: Temporal division. patial division. The moral establishment of the Temple through the imposition of biblical rituals in Al-Aqsa.
As for the historical rise of Temple groups in Israeli governments, Ibhis explained that the trend of religious Zionism is rising and shifting from the margins to the center. He explains that the first representative of the Zionist movement was Meir Kahane, who entered the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) in 1984, and when he decided to run for elections in 1988, a special law was enacted to prevent him from doing so, and there was an agreement to criminalize the idea of “religious Zionism” and keep it outside the political scene.
Then the "Religious Zionism" movement returned and regained its ability to enter the Knesset in 2002 through the National Religious Party. Since then, the presence of "Temple groups" has increased in successive governments, and in 2015 they gained ministerial influence for the first time after they had held the position of "Deputy Minister."
“Religious Zionism” in general is a political spectrum that tends not to participate in the government, but rather to form militias that impose their views, using the state as a cover for them. But specifically in the idea of the structure, groups tried to penetrate society and political systems through official licensed organizations, says Ibhais.
The dispersed organizations and movements formed the “Union of Temple Organizations” in 2013, and its number reached 24 institutions that year. Today, 46 institutions fall under the umbrella of the Union, which confirms the gradual rise of the system of structural institutions in terms of number, organization, cohesion, and ability to mobilize funding, in conjunction with the ability to ascend parliamentary and governmental positions.
Thus, extremist groups moved from forming militias and expressing themselves outside the regime to forming institutions and owning the regime, according to the Jordan-based researcher.
Regarding the influence of the Temple groups in the current Israeli government, Ibhis says, “We are facing a government controlled by religious Zionism because the Temple groups do not exist within one framework or in the “Jewish Power” party only, but also in Likud, and half of the representatives and ministers who attended the last meeting in one of the The tunnels next to Al-Aqsa Mosque are from Likud.
Ibhis adds, “In Netanyahu’s government, which consists of 31 ministers, there are 16 who are counted among the Temple groups’ bloc because they adopt its principles and work to achieve them. This means that they support building the Temple in the place of Al-Aqsa, and they are doing everything they can to transform it from a purely Islamic sanctuary into a shared one, while employing all capabilities.” "The military, political, economic and security state will achieve this."
Researcher Ibhis refuses to limit the talk about the agenda of Judaizing Al-Aqsa Mosque to the extremist Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s blackmail of Netanyahu, stating, “We are facing a profound state of transformation that makes belief in the Temple agenda a cross-party situation, and therefore they are going to the idea of adopting the Temple by choice, not by necessity.”
Bisharat, editor-in-chief of the Hodhud Network for Israeli Affairs, says that the close relationship between the Israeli government and extremist Temple groups is ancient, but its depth has never been revealed as much as it is now.
Bisharat added, in his interview with Al Jazeera Net, that these groups used to receive hidden support, but today it is clearly announced, and most leaders of temple organizations and settlement associations receive state awards. The leader of the "Elad" settlement association won the state award after the end of the excavations under the town of Silwan, adjacent to Al-Aqsa, because he "resurfaced the City of David," according to their claim.
The exact model of the Third Temple is already prepared and was created on a scale of 1/50. It can be viewed at the Visitors Center that will open its doors in Jerusalem in 2025. The square building, which is 150 meters long and 150 meters wide, and of varying heights, can be seen throughout Jerusalem.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh linked the terror organization’s October 7 “Al-Aqsa Flood” assault on southern Israel, in which over 1,200 people were murdered, with the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, complaining the Israelis “let the settlers and usurpers loose to sow corruption in the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Al-Quds.” Haniyeh declared “We have warned them, and we have warned the whole world, that even if, in the face of what is happening in Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the whole world remains silent, we will not be silent, we will not stand idly by; not our people, not our Resistance, not our Al-Qassam Brigades, not this Ummah.”
Messianism or Messianicism is the belief of the Jewish people who believe in Yeshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) as the promised Messiah (Messiah), savior and savior in the Holy Hebrew Scriptures, who will come at the end of the world to save his people Israel.
A question that the French newspaper “La Croix” (which means the cross) tried to answer, beginning its investigation by saying that the early morning of February 7 witnessed about 15 Jews heading to the Old City of Jerusalem to “pray” in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque, where they believe (which is not the case) The newspaper denies that the Muslims built their third holiest site (Al-Aqsa Mosque) in the same place where “the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, the holiest place for the Jews,” was located, in reference to what the Jews call the “Temple Mount.”
Lacroix adds that the Israeli police accompany the group to confront possible clashes with the Palestinians, noting that the reason for this is good, in her opinion, as the regular visits of these Jews violate the fragile status quo that was reached in 1967, which grants non-Muslims specific visiting hours and prevents them From praying in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The presence of this small group in the aforementioned courtyard also challenges the rules of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, which does not allow Jews to approach the “Holy of Holies” on the “ Temple Mount ,” according to Lacroix.
But the "Har Habayit" ("Temple Mount" in Hebrew) association organizes these trips back and forth and does not care about these considerations, because its members believe that claiming this holy place is the way to build the Third Temple, which will inevitably lead to accelerating the appearance of Christ, according to their claim.
Har HaBayit is not alone in working to “accelerate the coming of the Messiah.” Since the annexation of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, the messianic thought of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Ha Cohen Kook, known as Rav Kook, has fueled the creation of numerous associations.
Thus, since 1987, the Temple Institute has been working to reconstruct lost songs, traditions, and utensils after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 AD, while the interest of the “Puneh Israel” (Building Israel) Association was focused on importing red cows from the state of Texas, which They claim that "its sacrifice is necessary for the future priests of the Third Temple."
Although these associations are still a minority, they are witnessing significant development as a result of funding American evangelical Christian networks. They have also received major support for two years from supporters of religious Zionism within Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
“In the Jewish tradition, messianism is achieved in two stages,” says Roberta Colo-Moran, a researcher in the anthropology of contemporary Jewish societies at the Catholic Institute in Paris. Firstly, “the gathering of the Jewish diaspora in the Land of Israel,” that is, in what they call “the Biblical lands,” and secondly, the construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem.
However, there is still disagreement in Jewish circles: Should the dispersion be ended by humans or by God? On this point, Orthodox Hasidic circles differ from the Zionist principles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in that if the Jews were to return to Israel, humans had no right to interfere in this. Hasidism or Hasidism is a Jewish social religious movement that arose in the 17th century. It is known for its religious conservatism and social isolation, and its members adhere closely to Jewish Orthodox practice.
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